Sep
06
2012
Bottomless Money Pit Amtrak Wants Another $151 Billion
The catastrophic stupidity of allowing bureaucrats to run anything resembling a business venture becomes more obvious every time Amtrak crashes into the news. The latest appalling waste of our money involves an expansion that would cost (even before the inevitable overruns) a staggering $151 billion.
Amtrak president and CEO Joseph H. Boardman said: ‘We can worry about where the money is coming from, but we need to have a plan in place so when it does, we’re ready.’
Maybe Helicopter Ben should speed things up by adding a couple extra zeroes to the bills flying off his magic printing press.
Amtrak: the socialist train wreck that never stops happening.
On a tip from AC.
Only in a nation of mindless, gullible sheep would outrages like this be tolerated. Obviously, the American people deserve all that’s done to them.
Amtrak badly needs to be privatized. I know plenty of places where a train would be profitable (in fact, Texas is planning to open its own line between Austin and San Antonio to hopefully relieve the crippling traffic on I-35) if only it wasn’t run by incompetent bureaucrats.
It is hard to believe that people used to make money by building railroads.
…that was when Government didn’t insist on running them
Amtrak might work on the more urbanized coasts, but it is nearly useless in about 80% of the country. Smaller regional trains (privatized) would likely have a better chance to be profitable.
They can’t even make money off the sale of a can of soda and a cheeseburger…losses over a decade on these two items total over 800 million.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/story/2012-08-02/amtrak-congress-food-beverage-losses/56719770/1
Reminds me of this quote from Milton Friedman: “If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara desert, in five years there’d be a shortage of sand.”
I have also heard that if Amtrak had bought each of their riders a first class airline ticket to their destination, it would have been CHEAPER than having them ride the train.
In theory, a train incurs a fairly large fixed infrastructure cost, a relatively low fixed operating cost, and almost no per-passenger cost.
The goal of a train, then, is to cram as many passengers as possible onto each trip in order to maintain a low ticket price while making a profit. The logical conclusion drawn from Amtrak’s lack of profits is that they have categorically failed to do so.
The Boston-DC line is the only profitable Amtrak segment in the nation.
It has high ridership in a densely populated area, and was built back when railroad construction was about building railroads, before the unions discovered they could bribe politicians to let them loot the cost overruns.
America is not Europe. European transportation policies cannot work on our larger and less densely populated landmass, nor are they appealing to individuals who prefer private transportation over being crowded in next to smelly bums and rude cell phone users.
Todays Question:
Name (1) govt. program that has been/is successful and profitable, and delivers what it promised to deliver?
Bonus Question:
Why do the people tolerate it?
The talking heads on NPR spent an good deal of time last night explaining why being a successful businessman may be good and all that , but it doesn’t translate to gov’t . I lol’d .
I’ll have to go with the GI Bill. Putting homeownership and education in the hands of our nation’s best built out the suburbs, small businesses, and helped create a new generation of taxpayers and leaders.
Concealed carry would be another good choice. Law-abiding citizens are busy standing their ground against dirtbags, which helps greatly with the bottom line of our overcrowded prison system.
First off AC I disagree.
Concealed carry is not a successful government program, it is a successful counter-action against government intrusion into a constitutionally protected Right which the government had no rights to modify or disallow in the first place.
As for Amtrak; just another example of a hostile government being used to take over that which they had no right to. The Government killed private rail transport, partly through onerous regulation and taxation (sound familiar?) and partly by subsidizing competing industries (“What’s good for GM is good for America”) The government Still provides subsidies to the Airlines that compete against Amtrak, helping keep ticketing costs ‘down’ (HA!) while herding people through TSA ‘molestation-stations’.
Trains could still run at a profit in the US, just as they did in the 1880′s -if the Federal Beast could keep their thumbs off the scales and quit trying to pick winners and loosers.
I know, I know. I was trying to find something the government had done right and I had to reach that far.
I guess it goes to show how accustomed we have become to big government when we have to hail licensed carry as our savior, with constitutional carrying being little more than a dream from a departed era.
M.Wilson says:
September 6, 2012 at 7:23 am
In theory, a train incurs a fairly large fixed infrastructure cost, a relatively low fixed operating cost, and almost no per-passenger cost.
The goal of a train, then, is to cram as many passengers as possible onto each trip in order to maintain a low ticket price while making a profit. The logical conclusion drawn from Amtrak’s lack of profits is that they have categorically failed to do so.
Mr. Wilson – Realize that Amtrak is losing money on food and beverage sales, not just operating costs. They can’t even buy food and drink at wholesale and sell it at retail on the trains to a captive audience much less operate a railroad.
They need to change the sound of the locomotive air horn so that it emits a gigantic sucking sound as the train approaches a crossing. It would be more accurate and scare the hell out of motorists.
Amtrak smells of sour cream and failure.